View full sizeOlivia Bucks/The OregonianVeronica Corral, 17, a student at Youth Employment Institute, talks to recruits about her experiences with police officers as a part of Portland’s unique
Community Partnership Program, a community-policing orientation for police
recruits before they head to basic training.
Jefferson High School's closing bell rings, but these students don't move from their seats.

The teens, mostly minorities from various Portland schools, have the ears of Portland police recruits, and aren't holding back about their concerns surrounding their interactions with officers on the streets.

"I've never had a good interaction with the police...They've all been bad," says Meko Duckett, 17, describing how she was picked up by police when she was a runaway.

The recruits haven't even been sworn in, but they're being exposed to some of the challenges they'll confront on the city's streets. It's all part of Portland's unique Community Partnership Program, a community-policing orientation for police recruits before they head to basic training.

This day, the recruits are dressed in jeans and T-shirts, and rubbing shoulders with the students as they sit and listen to their comments in the high school's community room.

Matt Boyd, who at 42 is turning to police work after a 20-year Navy career, listens intently to Duckett. Then, he shares how as a boy he had some negative experiences with cops in Guam, and felt like police were just looking for a reason to give him trouble. But Boyd explains to Duckett, that if his child had run away, he'd want to make sure the child was safe. As a cop, he said he'd detain her because he'd wouldn't want to see her harmed.

Recruit Madison Ceaser, 26, an African American who grew up in Portland, graduated from Benson High School and went to University of Oregon, tells the students, "I'm not too far from you." He says he knows police need to improve relationships with youth, and he wants to help build those bridges. He says he intends to go to high school athletic events so he can get to know local teens. The back-and-forth, sometimes uneasy conversations prove helpful. The recruits urge the youth to treat each officer with respect, and not lose faith in their public safety force based on an interaction with one officer. The youth open the recruits' eyes to some of the distrust in the community.

"That's why we do things like this -- to keep getting better at what we do," said Police Sgt. Dave Virtue, a police training supervisor who helped develop the program with Multnomah County Department of Community Justice.

Portland police hired the recruits as nonsworn "public safety aides" and are having them build relationships right away with community members whom they may encounter on the job. Many have already spent three- to five weeks either coaching sports camps run by the Portland Activities League, or delivering food boxes through the police bureau's Sunshine Division.

Last week, the recruits also toured the city's homeless and youth shelters, visited the juvenile detention center and met with members of several gang prevention agencies and outreach groups. Next month, they'll be sworn in.

Maureen Brennan clinical services administrator for Outside In -- a social service agency that serves the homeless and low-income adults, gave the recruits a tour Friday. "This is setting a good example for the young recruits. I believe we both have difficult jobs, and it does make our jobs easier when we're helping each other."

Recruit Kendall Kamphuis, 31, who did social work in California and supervised teenagers in a drug and alcohol rehab program before applying to be an officer, called the program "amazing."

"The better we get in touch with the community, and the people we're going to be working with, the better we'll be able to do our jobs," he said.